Its 2012, startups are making big bucks. You are studying engineering and have dreams of someday coding the next Big thing and when placements happen you happily jump towards the big IT companies who usually come first. Well if being a “rockstar” or a “ninja” is what you crave, then you are going down the wrong path, my friend.

What happens when you join a big company is that they see you as a raw material, ready to be moulded as they desire but you obviously have other plans. Before you know it, you will be branched into streams and your “rockstar” career may just go up in smoke. There is no measurement of aptitude for the job just seemingly random distribution into the various streams. This is the easiest way of tackling with the ‘how to split these people’ problem. Academics play an important role in this filtering. So there you are , getting trained in a technology that is either boring or getting obsolete by the year and your passion for the profession is slowly being sucked out of you. Once you are done with the “training”, you get allotted to sections of the company and your IT career begins. You normally start being a team member, answering to seniors and initiated into the project. Appraisals happen and your pay increases by a measly amount every year and you dream of going “onsite”. You are no longer a “ninja” and most probably are cozy in this simple life. If thats how you want to end, well my friend, all the best. But if you really want to be somebody step outside the mould, live life, take risks, code a side project, learn what you want, get enlightened, dream big, execute ideas and be honest to yourself. We are all unique, we are not assembled. Today’s freshers are more likely to revolt atleast that’s what i see around me. Attrition rates are quite growing. Consider this, for every 100 new freshers joining , approximately 60-70 experienced people are leaving IT companies. This results in a vacuum of middle leadership and thats why companies recruit all year long. Most people leave because they are unhappy at their current job. In a recent survey conducted by Karthik, the results seem to confirm what we already deduced. 25% every morning, don’t look forward to go to work. 34% feel their work is mundane, and not challenging. 20% feel that there is no clarity in the work and process. 45% are currently planning to change jobs and 75% are in their first jobs! Alarming statistics actually.

If you fall in the unhappy lot, then well i suggest its time you sat back and reflected on where you are headed and decide if thats the road that you want to take.

P.S. This was meant to be part of a bigger post which i abandoned because i got busy with work and the transition from work to college life again. I currently am studying ‘Information and Interface Design’ at the National Institute of Design, Bangalore. I wrote this post out of frustration and it was based on the real life situation around me at that time.

A friend of mine shared this article from the Telegraph on Facebook and he asked me my views so i ended up typing a hastily written paragraph on my thoughts.

Time and again someone writes such an article which makes people think about the current state of affairs in the most populous country of the world. People share it around and then after some days its consigned to the corner of their minds. People talking about change but there are hardly anyone who is doing anything that will change the way things are. The common man has been too alienated from the bureacracy that they dont want to get involved or cant if they want to. Take for examples our political parties, they are a prime example of how our democracy is actually an oligarchy. There are few young people in government service and no way for them to climb up the ladder to actually bring a change, add to this the fact that they would rather live a relaxed life than create a new world order implies that India wont change, not now and not by 2020. You would know what happened in our college itself, the administration was unwiling to listen to the ideas of the students and always tend to do what they think is right eventhough it would not make sense. There also comes another problem when you try to change something for the good, there are people who make a living because of the way things are. Your actions would inconvenience them and that would add to resistance thus impeding the change you desire.

My Mind is often on its own jaunts and suddenly it strikes me that my Life is suddenly very similar to a Zynga Game. Yes, Farmville and its ilk. Lets generalise that to pretty much most online games. How you ask?

I got my First Salary the last week and all seemed well and good. Until you start to spend it. You come to realise its finiteness and then its hits you that essentially your salary is like those Coins you earn on Zynga games for during pre-determined tasks. Yes , we did the same this month. Complete pre-determined tasks for which we were rewarded at the end of the month with currency. Now that amount is not a big one and as soon as you start spending suddenly it looks like its almost gone. That reminded me about how not having certain amount of coins in these games prevents you from buying certain highly priced items that you crave for. Right now am at that stage 😛

It was 4 years ago, blogs had just captured the attention of newspapers and the offline world. I had joined Engineering. I had started writing about 2 years ago when i decided to test if i had inherited it from my genes. What started off with autobiographical writings and dark poems eventually culminated in this blog Aninosaintlife, which after second opinions resulted in the wp.com version you now see before you. Eventually i broached out to this, largely kept hidden until recently, where i blogged as Insomniac. ‘An Inosaint Life’ gave way to ‘An Innocent Life’ and in somewhere in 3rd year of engineering ‘Life is not all Ha-ha hee-hee’ was replaced by the newer namesake’s name. ‘Mad Hunter Skozaken‘.

The Blog and the online world taught me a lot i should say. In addition to finding some awesome people online, it made me develop my writing style. This has changed from an ‘everyday blog’ to a more My Article Blog.The Old Gang of bloggers is almost all gone. I myself disappeared for long stretches in the past two years when offline life kept me pretty preoccupied. When i did eventually come back, the blogosphere was changed. I really didnt feel the need to ‘publicize’ my blog. I still maintain contact with some of the ‘Old Gang’ but thats pretty much it. Nowadays i just follow some of my friends blogs (who arent very regular when it comes to updating).

In these 4 years, I have started and blogged at more than 7 blogs writing around 350+ posts in all. The Mind Clutter Blogger blog, A Quiz Blog survived Ignitte.in and is now on WP.com, a Posterous and finally, in July Absolutely Filmy! came into being. I also re-wrote my ‘About‘ Page and created a ‘Downloads‘ page. Thats been my journey so far.
I really feel Blogging/Writing is my Chicken Soup for the Soul. I dont care if people dont read what i write. I know this gives me a way to archive my thoughts. Some day when i am old and worn, counting that the interweb survives, i would look back to the decades of history i intend to chronicle here. I write happy thoughts here. There s a lot left unsaid ; why should i reveal my emotions to all and sundry? Humans are fickle minded creatures. But thats another blog post in itself.

For People who visit/read, Thank You.
For Friends who support, Thank You.

I realised this the other day as we were called to take stage and enjoy the moments as final years. It would perhaps be our last opportunity. But in the midst of it all I knew that it was not something that I wanted to do. The people on stage were largely a hostile bunch. Reluctantly I climbed up when a friend asked me to. I chatted for a minute and I was back down. People asked me why? I replied I was just not into it. The truth is I was feeling disconnected. When my engineering ends this june, I probably wont miss most of my class mates. Who I’ll probably miss are a bunch of people spread across the college. These have been the people who have shared the same ideals, lived the same experiences and have had fun for the last 3-4 years.

I realise that certain people have changed for the worse and certain others have become distant. There are some that have been misunderstood and some that have hurt me. But I really don’t care about all that. I’m happy with the effort that I put in being part of anything. I may be eccentric and whiny but then also I know certain people appreciate me. My goal to bring about certain awareness in Nitte has been partially successful. Grey matter being the biggest success. I truly hope that someone will carry it forward and guide juniors towards excellence. The unified fest which suddenly looks like a reality will probably happen in the coming years but its success is only limited by the people at its helm. I seriously wish that people become more aware of university culture in the coming years. Another project, The Labyrinth, probably will go online soon.

So looking back on these 4 years, there have been a lot of memories. Aloysius never gave me much of an opportunity to represent them during PUC but Nitte sure gave me a lot. I’ll surely miss the fests that we used to attend, the anticipation and the effort on stage and well, the final glory!

Academically speaking I am an EC illiterate. I can barely remember anything that I have learnt. Decent above average marks dictate a different story. What I have realised is that I’ve become more inclined to modern technologies and computer science.

Oh and for the future of Nitte , there seems to be some hope. The second year teams show promise. I am glad that there are people who can continue what our batch started and perhaps improve on it. For now, the next big thing is VTU fest 2010. What happens next, depends on it.

Thats what happens when you dont know what to give priority, who to reply to and in what order you do everything especially when you are online. As i usually sit on the comp to write a blog post or something.. Beep! goes the cell and i need to answer that.. the IM windows just start popping up and i get all confused on what the hell i need to do next. As i get ready to reply, The cell inbox says that my inbox is full and more smses are waiting..aahh!! thats what i wanna scream out loud!! but being me i do that in mind. and get back to the hectic life of mine. Thats the problem if you have too much of a social life.. All around blogosphere you are seeing that more and more of the old bloggers blog less frequently. Its because somewhere along the line they grew a social life. And social lives or for that reason any lives are VERY demanding. You get caught up with your studies and ur job and dont feel like penning down those thoughts when you can use that time for something better. Like entertainment like a movie or something 🙂 So thats why you see lot less of the older wiser bloggers blogging less frequently just so that they can handle the information overload. Like me for an example., i took a break in November when i stopped blogging for a while. Yeah it obviously didnt make any impact on the world, sadly. So obviously i may be blogging less frequently because i’ve got a lot of issues to sort out and i dont exactly get the online time that the rest of you people do so Cheerio! damn! the inbox i full again :O AAAAAAHHHHHH!!!